Have you noticed that when someone departs, all the good things about them are trotted out by the media, but their less desirable elements are conveniently forgotten? 

I suppose it comes under the heading of not speaking ill of the dead. I thought it was a little like that last week when Jose Mourinho’s bluff was finally called by his Chelsea employers. Many people, of course, felt he was special, none more than himself, styling himself as ‘The Special One’. His fans will no doubt point to his passion for football. To me he had the passion of a rabble rouser. 

Reading fans will need no reminding of his tirade against the Reading management and the Reading ambulance service when the Chelsea goalkeeper, Petr Cech, was seriously injured in a collision with Royal’s forward Stephen Hunt. After he had publicly accused both of being dilatory in their treatment of the goalkeeper, it turned out that the delay was due to his own medical staff. No apology but a lot of hate and resentment aroused by his ill-judged comments.

His club owners are reported to have desired more attractive, entertaining football and it has to be said that the team that Mourinho built at Chelsea reflected his own arrogant personality. Look at their harassment of referees when they think they should have been given a decision or when a decision goes against them. 

It is not only match officials who are subjected to this hostile environment that he created on the field. Opposing players also find themselves harangued and menaced by Chelsea players when they think they have been offended against. There can be little doubt either, that some of their illegal tactics, such as deliberately blocking opponents at Chelsea corners, have been honed on the training field.

We have seen Mourinho’s own blustering belligerence towards referees all too often. Take his barrage of insults at Graham Poll in the John Terry affair, which again turned out to be a tissue of lies. He also called Mike Riley the son of a whore to his face. Admittedly it was in Portuguese so Riley didn’t realise the insult, but Mourinho boasted about the interpretation afterwards to the press. T

ake his extraordinary behaviour at his last Chelsea home game in the Premiership, when he ran along the line waving a monitor at the assistant referee who had given his player offside. Even the pundits on Match of the Day were a little taken aback but none pointed out that the camera, which was supposed to prove the assistant wrong, was not in line with play and therefore totally inconclusive. ‘I expect to receive a phone call from Keith Hackett, head of Premiership referees, to apologise on Monday,’ Mourinho said arrogantly. 

Where was his apology when his greatest slander against a referee was found to be totally untrue? In the Chelsea Champions League game against Barcelona he claimed to have seen the opposing team manager go into the dressing room of the referee, Ander Frisk, during the half- time interval. When it turned out that a UEFA official could prove that it never happened, Mourinho changed his story to admit that one of his staff had merely seen the opposing manager speak to Frisk in the tunnel as they went in for the break. No apology for his lies or for the fact that his outburst had led to some of the more odious Chelsea fans issuing death threats to Fisck and his family. Threats he took so seriously that he quit refereeing after many years of distinguished service to the game. 

To those who believe all this is excused by his passion for football, I would say that I too am passionate about football but am also passionate about fair play and honesty in the game. I, for one, will shed no tears at the departure of Mourinho. 


Dick Sawdon Smith 

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© R Sawdon Smith 2007